When I was nineteen I completed a one-year Art Foundation course with
distinction, and then completely failed to get a place at university. This
sudden rejection came as an almighty shock since I’d always been rather
sensible, studious and academically successful up until that point. Looking
back on it I was not an exciting prospective student – I was unhappy and
lacking both confidence and drive; something the interviewers presumably picked
up on, but which I couldn’t admit at the time. Despite this unexpected
knock-back I was determined that I would re-apply for the same art degree
course, at the same institution, the following year (I’d done my research and
that was where I wanted to be) but what to do in the meantime? I was left wondering
‘What now…?’
Sitting in my bank account were the funds I’d saved up from working
Sundays in Debenhams, most of my friends were caught up in their new student
lives and I now had several empty months stretching ahead of me. Rather than
wallow in misery, I decided to take a chance and do something different;
something crazy, impulsive and unlike me – so I bought a one-way ticket to
Australia.
It wasn’t quite as dramatic as it sounds – I delayed my departure long
enough to obtain a working tourist visa, a guidebook and an arm full of jabs,
and I had an ex-boyfriend willing to meet me at Sydney airport and show me the
sights – but for me at nineteen, flying off to the other side of the world on
my own was uncharacteristically brave and terrifying.
The trip was a disaster at first. While I was keen to see as much of the
vast continent as possible, my ex had already been travelling for months, run
out of money and needed to stay in Sydney to work. Relations between us, as you
might imagine, were not ideal to start with and became increasingly strained as
the days passed. Trapped in a foreign city, so far from friends and family, I’d
never felt more alone and more than once I considered jumping straight back on
a plane home, my tail between my legs.
But one of the best things about Australia is just how well they cater
for travellers. Chatting to the multitude of friendly, easy-going people I
shared a hostel with, gave me the courage I needed to stay and give my
adventure a proper chance. This time the one-way ticket I bought was for an Oz
Experience bus to take me all the way up the east coast as far as Cairns. I
can’t begin to tell you how perfect this mode of transport was for a lone
introvert like me. The drivers doubled as tour hosts; commencing each day with
ice-breaker games and turning a bus full of strangers into friends for the day.
I was usually the youngest, the ‘baby of the bus’, a title that encouraged my
fellow travellers to look out for me – which in turn reassured my poor, worried
mum back home. The buses stopped at a different dwelling each night –
everything from a sheep station to a beach lodge to a cattle ranch – but with
the flexibility that you could stay at each place as many days as you wished,
simply catching another bus when you were ready to move on up the coast.
This isn’t a travel blog so I won’t go in to all the amazing adventures
I had; all the friends I made and all the incredible things I saw and did.
Suffice to say that from Cairns I carried right on to Alice Springs in the centre
of the continent, working my way down through several other places before
arriving back in Sydney. It was the best six months of my life – even allowing
for my allergic reaction to mosquito bites!
But the most important and enduring effects of this impulsive journey
were nothing to do with Australia as a country at all. Firstly, the fact I’d
even made the trip gave my confidence a huge, much-needed boost, and secondly;
time and distance away from my day-to-day life gave me an invaluable sense of
perspective. Exploring the coasts, mountains, rainforests and deserts of a
country ten thousand miles away, somehow made me painfully aware that my
relationship with my dad back in the UK, was falling apart.
As a child of divorced parents, one of the hardest things for me was
reconciling my emotions. In a nutshell: I felt hurt, anger and resentment
towards the very people I loved most and didn’t know what to do about it.
Consequently, over the years, I had unconsciously closed myself off and
completely stopped talking to my dad. With the fresh clarity of oceans betweens
us, I realised that with my continued silence, I risked destroying our
relationship altogether.
It was on a far-flung mountain top that I finally sat down and
hand-wrote Dad a letter; explaining how I felt and how I wanted things to be
good between us again. Forgiveness, like most things worth achieving, is not
easy, but I think if you can open up the lines of communication you are already
half way there. That letter, the power of the written word being what it is,
prompted my dad to call me and we had a great, long, tearful conversation that
I believe was healing on both sides.
A few months later, back in the UK, when I woke to find myself delirious
with flu on the very day of my ‘second chance’ university interview, it was my
dad – my biggest fan – who insisted I go. Without him driving me there, plying
me with paracetamol and marching me up and down Brighton seafront to make sure
I was awake, I would never have made it. I have no recollection of what I said
in that interview, but whatever it was it must have made an impression. A week
later I was granted a place on the BA Hons Fine Art Sculpture course, and spent
the next three years enjoying every moment! Turns out some of life’s
knock-backs can be made into opportunities, if you are prepared to take a
chance.
Wow what a magnificent chance you took. Thank you so much Grace for sharing that with us.
Safe With Me (due to
be published 22nd June 2017) blurb:
An emotional and evocative story about the deepest
bonds of friendship.
Abandoned as children, Kat and Jamie were inseparable growing up in
foster care. But their bond couldn’t protect them forever.
From a troubled upbringing to working in a London greasy spoon, Kat’s
life has never been easy. On the surface Jamie’s living the high-life, but
appearances can be deceiving.
When they unexpectedly reunite, the bond they share becomes too intense
to ignore. But as secrets come back to haunt them, are they destined to be
separated once more?
Perfect for fans of Hilary Boyd and Nicholas Sparks.
Buy links:
Author Biography and links:
Having worked as a collage artist, sculptor, prop maker and garden
designer, Grace has always been creative, but she is a romantic introvert at
heart and writing was, and is, her first love.
Safe With Me, the first women’s fiction novel in The Wildham Series, is
published by Accent Press, who also released her debut contemporary romance
novel, Kindred Hearts, in 2015. A lover of rock music, art nouveau design, blue
cheese and grumpy ginger tomcats, Grace is also an avid reader of fiction –
generally preferring coffee and a sinister undercurrent, over tea and chick
lit. When not making prop costumes or hanging out with her nephews, she
continues to write stories from her Hertfordshire home.
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